Israel shoots five in attacks

Israeli forces shot dead five Palestinians in three separate confrontations and another was killed when a public telephone exploded in his hand.

Mohammed Shtewie Abayat was speaking on a telephone about 30 yards from Beit Jala Hospital near the West Bank city of Bethlehem when it exploded yesterday, killing him instantly, according to doctors.

Relatives said he was a militiaman in Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

Palestinians said one of those killed in other incidents was a four-year-old boy, shot during what the army said was a firefight as troops searched for weapons smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip.

In Beit Jala, Abayat’s brother Moussa said the two had brought their mother to the hospital and 28-year-old Mohammed went outside to use the telephone. He “started to speak on it and it suddenly blew up. Parts of his body were everywhere.”

“I believe it is an assassination of my brother, who is a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade,” which is linked to Fatah, the brother said.

Israel’s military said it had no immediate comment.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers killed two armed men who crossed into southern Israel from Egypt, said the commander of Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, Brig Gen Israel Ziv.

Three soldiers were wounded in a gunfight that broke out, he added.

The Ahmed Abu al-Rish Brigades, an offshoot of the Fatah movement led by Yasser Arafat, claimed responsibility for the infiltration. The announcement was made from loudspeakers at mosques in the Gaza town of Khan Younis.

It was not clear how the infiltrators entered Israel, though there is a tunnel network in the region that goes from one side of the border to the other, the military says.

Not far away, in the southern Gaza Strip, army troops entered the Rafah refugee camp to search for tunnels and clashes broke out that left two Palestinians dead, including the four-year-old boy, and 28 wounded, according to Palestinian witnesses.

Palestinians said the soldiers blew up five houses. The army said one house was blown up but other houses were damaged when the army destroyed tunnels. The army said it fired on Palestinians after militants shot at troops and threw grenades.

One of the dead Palestinians was four-year-old Tawfik Hussan Bereka, said Dr Ali Mussa at the Rafah hospital.

Moussa Bereka, a relative of the dead boy, said the 60 people in his extended family ran from the house in their pyjamas.

The boy was wounded as they ran and died later at the hospital. “They did not even give us one minute to evacuate our belongings or to leave safely,” Bereka said.

The Israeli commander, Ziv, said the troops entered the camp shortly after midnight and no houses were blown up until almost 5am.

“The occupants were given at least 35 minutes to get out of the house,” he said.

In the West Bank, Palestinians said troops killed a 56-year-old woman and wounded two other women.

The women were taking a side road to evade an Israeli roadblock near the town of Jenin when soldiers opened fire on their car, witnesses said. The military said it was checking the report.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, sent a strongly-worded message to prime minister Ariel Sharon’s office over the weekend, saying Israel had not met promises to ease tough restrictions imposed on the Palestinians, a diplomatic source said.

The move comes as Sharon prepared to depart for the United States tomorrow in advance of a Wednesday meeting with President George W Bush at the White House.

The Bush administration has strongly supported Israel in the Mideast conflict, especially in recent months.

However, Kurtzer’s letter called for Israel to ease its military grip on the West Bank Palestinian cities it occupied after suicide bombings in June, allow Palestinians greater freedom of movement and turn over withheld taxes that Israel collected on behalf of the Palestinians, according to the diplomatic source and Israeli newspapers.

Israel’s cabinet yesterday discussed the possibility of removing some military blockades in and around Palestinian areas and handing over the tax money.

Cabinet secretary Gideon Saar said no decision was taken, and Israel’s response would depend on cessation of Palestinian attacks.